Levi flinched, just enough for me to feel it.
Charlie’s gaze sharpened. “You really think so little of him?”
“That’s between me and him,” I snapped.
“Everything between you and him is currently sitting on my furniture,” he said. “So, forgive me if I take an interest.”
Levi blew out a breath. “Enough,” he said. “Amelia’s not wrong to ask questions. You’re not wrong to be wary of leaks. But if we’re going to keep talking, we need something besides mutual suspicion on the table.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“Access,” he said, turning to me. “That’s what you want.”
“Truth is what I want,” I said. “Access is just the only way to get to it.”
Charlie considered that. Then he nodded once, decision made.
“Fine,” he said. “You can look. Within reason.”
My pulse ticked up. “Define ‘reason.’”
“You stay on the parts of our operation that are already visible,” he said. “Clinics. Training facilities. Local investments. You talk to who I tell you you can talk to, when I say it’s safe for them and for us. You don’t publish names of people whose lives you’ll ruin by doing so. And if you stumble onto something you think is illegal, you come to me before you blast it to the world.”
“Absolutely not,” I said.
“Then we’re done,” he said, standing.
Levi’s hand closed around my wrist, gentle but firm. “Amelia.”
I looked at him, ready to bite.
His eyes were steady, dark. “You’re not going to get another chance like this,” he said quietly. “Not with them watching you now. You know that.”
He was right. I hated that more than anything.
Charlie watched us, arms folded across his chest. “I’m offering you a spotlight inside the fog,” he said. “Most people get to squint at the edges from outside the fence.”
“You’re offering me managed perception,” I said. “Guided tours and sanitized talking points.”
“I’m offering you more than anyone else has,” he said. “And I’m curious enough about whoever’s feeding you that I’m willing to make the trade.”
There it was—his price.
“You stay out of my sources,” I said. “Non-negotiable. You don’t chase them. You don’t try to scare them quiet.”
“I don’t chase ghosts,” he said. “If they’re real people, though, I can’t promise I won’t protect my own, if they’re lying.”
“If they’re lying, I’ll be the one to say it,” I shot back.
Charlie’s mouth curved. “Now, that I believe.”
Another heartbeat of silence stretched between us.
“Fine,” I said at last. “You give me access, I won’t blindside you for sport. But if you’re lying to me—if this place is what my sources think it is—I will burn it down to the studs and salt the earth after.”
He didn’t flinch.
“That’s the Amelia Emerson I read,” he said. “Welcome to Dominion Hall.”
